


No Angel

by sorrowfulcheese



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mass Effect Holiday Cheer, Post-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 07:55:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2843729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorrowfulcheese/pseuds/sorrowfulcheese
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mass Effect Holiday Cheer gift for rambunctiousragamuffin/arilulz, who likes ZaeedxFem!Shep :heart:</p>
<p>Merry Merry Holiday-of-your-Choice - I hope you like this! *^_^*</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Angel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zombiebrainsoup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombiebrainsoup/gifts).



                Above her was blue sky, clear and cool. She was dead, then, certainly, for the sky had been nothing but grim steely clouds for four years.

                 She blinked, and the blue sky remained.

                 She was cold, and it surprised her, for if she was dead, should she feel anything?

                 "Found someone," she heard. "Over here."

                 She heard the sound of awkward footsteps, of brick sliding against stone, a sudden intake of breath as balance was regained. The blue sky was blocked out and a blurry blue face came into sight.

                 "Goddess, it's her. It's Shepard."

                 "At least she can be buried with honour."

                 "Not yet. She's alive."

                 "Impossible. She was caught in that beam. She couldn't have survived. It can't be Shepard."

                 "It's Shepard, I'm telling you, and she's alive."

                 More movement nearby, more bricks, more gasps. "Goddess, you're right." A pause. "This is Mirza. We've located Shepard—yes, Shepard, you heard right. We need medevac, immediately."

                 Medevac. Then she _was_ alive.

                 Hurried sharp voices, now, and the sky began to move.

                 She closed her eyes. 

* * *

                There was a soft beeping nearby, the hum of machines, quiet footsteps and hushed tones. She thought she could smell antiseptic, something like medigel.

                 Hospital, then. Cold and clean and unfeeling.

                 But nearby there was a presence, warm and strong and silent, and Shepard felt safe even though she could not move, could not speak, could not see. She was comforted by the presence, and she rested.

                "Here she is." That was Liara's voice, no doubt of it. "I can hardly believe it." Movement, warmth. "Shepard, it's Liara. We just found out you made it. I can't—we didn't—" She choked on her words and the room fell quiet.

                Liara stayed for too short a time, but she promised she would come back, and she left.

                As time passed other voices arrived—Kaidan, with respectful and encouraging words; Joker, with less respectful ones. Steve stayed longer than the others, and talked quietly to Shepard of mundane things that were happening in the galaxy—rebuilding structures and communications and lives. He had met someone, he told her, and wasn't sure he was the right one, but they were taking things a day at a time. Garrus came by and reminded her that he was still the best sniper in the galaxy, and told her she would have to wake up in order to prove him wrong. Tali tiptoed in and in whispered tones thanked Shepard for all she had done, for her and for the quarians and for the galaxy. James stayed only long enough to remind her that she'd lost a bet to him, and that he was going to collect on it.

                 One by one they came and went.

                 How long had it been since the Reapers had fallen? she wondered. How long had she been here in this place?

                 Hackett's gravelly voice pierced the darkness and told her she had been awarded several medals for valor and bravery and one that had been created just for her, just because of her actions in the war, and that he did not expect anyone else ever to earn it, but that it was there as incentive for future generations, something for them to strive for—

                To _strive for_?

                To lie in a hospital bed, unable to see or speak?

                Why had she even survived?

                The galaxy had a wonderful fucking sense of humour, didn't it?

                When Hackett had gone the presence made itself felt again, and Shepard was sure she heard _sanctimonious asshole_ but she couldn't possibly have heard that.

                 It almost made her smile.

* * *

                Time passed.

                 She could never tell how much of it was slipping past her, except that now and again her visitors would mention a date or a holiday or an anniversary. If she was right, it had been not quite three months since the Reapers had fallen.

                The visitors came less frequently these days. Liara had visited her twice and not since; being the Shadow Broker, even in a cracked and bleeding galaxy, took a great deal of time and mental effort. Kaidan had been deployed elsewhere, and had stopped by to let her know that he wouldn't be stopping by anymore. One by one they stopped visiting, as they moved forward with their lives and she did not move at all.

                 Doctors murmured quiet orders; hospital staff mopped around her bed and thumped it with their buckets and she was annoyed but could say nothing about it. She was lifted and turned and stripped and washed by unfeeling nurses—it was a part of their job and nothing personal, she knew, but it was still unsettling—and dressed in clean hospital gowns and left alone in silence for hours at a time.

                 Not entirely alone, she reminded herself. The quiet presence that had been with her all along was still there, still warm and strong, the only constant in her life besides the dull routine of nurses' shifts and periodic checkups.

                 But even with that presence there—guardian angel, perhaps? Death itself, waiting to take her?—she knew she did not want to spend the rest of her life this way. This was not being alive.

                 She had once been to the home of a fellow Marine, to deliver the news of the Marine's death to his parents. It had been a job for someone of higher rank than Shepard, but the brass had told her to do it since she had been in the area. The Marine's mother had been decorating their Christmas tree when Shepard had arrived, and had sat down on a couch with a bauble in her hand. It had been hand-carved out of wood, she had told Shepard, while tears streaked her cheeks, and inlaid with opal. It had to be carefully oiled so that it wouldn't dry out and crack. Her son had found it in a bazaar somewhere he'd been deployed, and he'd brought it home while on furlough. It had gone on the tree every year since then, and she had always thought that keeping it safe would somehow keep him safe.

                But it was just a decoration. It was just a piece of wood, fragile and organic, inlaid with an even more fragile stone, and without care it would shrivel and break. It was useless—it hadn't kept the Marine safe. All the years of rubbing it gently with oil and carefully packing it away to protect it had done nothing to save her son's life, and Shepard had watched as the woman had clutched the worthless thing in her hands.

                And now Shepard was a wooden bauble, who had to be gently turned and washed and protected lest she shrivel and crack.

                It would have been kinder to have let her die. 

* * *

                She stared up at the ceiling and blinked. It was standard tiling, dingy white because no one really got up to wash a ceiling, not even in a hospital.

                 "God, I could use a drink."

                 Though her voice was weak and hoarse it was unmistakably hers, and it startled her.

                 There was a quick shuffling movement nearby and pressure somewhere on the bed and a familiar face blocked the view of the dingy ceiling tiles. One green eye showed a level of concern she'd not seen in it at any point in her life.

                 "Shall I fetch you a bottle of ryncol, then?" he said quietly, with a wry smile.

                 "To start," Shepard agreed, and she thought she might be smiling back, because it made sense, now. "How long've you been here?"

                 "Long as you," he said, and shrugged. "Better get a doctor. They'll want to know." He hesitated, and then touched her cheek with his fingertips, gentle and very warm. His ears reddened and he turned away and soon a rustle of doctors and nurses filled the room.

                 Shepard answered as many questions as she could before she had to close her eyes and sleep.

                 When she woke the room was dark. She turned her head slowly to one side and let her eyes adjust with difficulty. Zaeed was slumped on a chair next to the bed, his elbow on the armrest and his head on his hand. He snored softly. Shepard smiled to herself—sure now that she was in fact smiling—and watched him until she fell asleep again. 

* * *

                Days passed and she was able to remain awake longer each time. She was able to sit up without assistance, but Zaeed helped her to eat the weak broth and tasteless gelatin she was given, for her trembling hands were not quite strong enough to lift a spoon and guide it to her mouth at the same time. He wiped her chin solicitously when a drop escaped her lips, and he never once laughed at her.

                Weeks passed and with daily therapy she was able to stand on her own. Zaeed went to her physiotherapy sessions with her, stood silently to one side and watched intently as she took each shaking step. When she was done, sweating and breathing heavily, he accompanied her and the therapist back to her room where she was swiftly sponge-bathed by a nurse's assistant. As often as not she fell asleep partway through the bath.

                 Before long she was walking with ease and feeding herself and only the most difficult tasks gave her pause. The doctors were pleased with her progress, and they began to talk of discharging her.

                 It occurred to her that outside the hospital she really had nowhere to go, for the first time since she'd enlisted in the Alliance Navy at eighteen. She supposed she was still a Marine, could return to active duty. They might put her behind a desk, the shape she was in now.

                 It was not a pleasant thought.

* * *

                Civilian clothing was brought for her and she washed and dressed and stared at herself in the mirror. Her hair had been completely shaved off when she'd been brought here—so the surgeons could put her skull back together, Zaeed had told her bluntly—but now it had grown in again, thick and dark. It wasn't long enough to put up, not yet, but it was too long to stay out of her face without help. She tucked it behind her ears. It would have to do.

                 Zaeed was waiting for her in the room, a duffel bag in one hand. It was still strange to see him in civilian gear, out of his armour, without a gun in hand. He turned and walked beside her without a word. He stood next to her as she signed all the discharge paperwork and when that was done he walked with her to the hospital doors.

                 She had been in the hospital courtyard during her rehabilitation, but this time the outdoors seemed massive and disorienting. She stood staring around her for a long moment.

                 Zaeed touched her elbow with his fingertips. "This way," he said, and led her toward the car park. "I've got a car."

                 "Rental?" she asked stupidly.

                 "Sort of," Zaeed said, and flashed a wicked grin. He put the duffel into the back of a sleek black model, opened the passenger-side door for Shepard, and shut the door carefully when she had seated herself. He trotted around the car and slipped into the driver's seat, strapped himself in, and turned his head to look at Shepard. "Where to?" he asked.

                 "I don't know," Shepard said. "Where are you going?"

                 He shrugged. "I have a place."

                 She watched him suspiciously a moment. "Three star or better, I hope," she said.

                 Zaeed laughed. "I wouldn't put the Alliance's best Marine in anything less," he assured her. He put the car into gear and lifted off, and fell quiet again as he paid attention to the traffic.

                 Shepard watched through the window as buildings and cars sped by. "Why did you stay?" she wondered.

                 "Hm?"

                 "Why did you stay with me? It couldn't have been much fun watching me do nothing every day."

                 "It was fine," Zaeed said. "I had a book."

                 "Why did you stay?" she asked again, sharply, and turned to look at him.

                 He glanced at her. "Why not?"

                 "That's not an answer."

                 "It _is_ an answer, just not the one you wanted." He swerved around a slower driver, settled into his lane. He exhaled. "When Vido shot me," he said, softly, "I was alone in the hospital when they fixed me up. When I was going through therapy, there was no one there to catch me if I fell. Just doctors and nurses and therapists and other strangers who were just doing their goddamn jobs." He rolled his shoulders, scowled at the rear-view mirror, then looked out at the traffic lane again. "So I figured I wouldn't make you go through that. Thought you deserved better."

                 She watched him a long moment. He'd never once caught her when she'd fallen during her rehabilitation; he'd known that she'd needed to rebuild muscle and bone, and that preventing her from falling would not have helped her. He never _would_ coddle her, would never lie to her, would never present himself as anything than who and what he was.

                 And he was full of shit, of course. He hadn't needed to stay while she'd been comatose, hadn't needed to be beside her every day while she'd been unresponsive; he couldn't have known that she'd even wake up, ever.

                 Shepard turned her head and looked out the window again and a hint of a smile touched her lips.

                 "When we get there," Zaeed said softly, "I'll get you that drink."

                 "Thanks, Zaeed," she said. "I appreciate it."


End file.
